by Cole Anders
Everything changed from that point on, Nerva instituted extremely strict entry requirements, and her stewardship of the facility and the efficiency of her information gathering where astounding, we never really needed build up support staff from then on. And so here we are now, for field agents it's just You, Me, Victor, Toby, Jeffery and his new protégé Fran who are both in Germany right now on assignment. And Al, Calvin, David, and Nerva as support staff.
“That story was insane, Luke you realize that right? And horrifying.” Simon exclaimed.
Luke sat up and stretched his back, causing it to pop in several places. “I suppose it was, but you needed to know what happened to us before you came around, we've had other recruits come and go, but other than Fran, they've all been killed by accidents or in the field.”
“One thing still bothers me about that whole nightmare. What caused it? Why were you guys attacked, and if so by what?” Simon asked.
“We never really found out for sure how it happened, and Nerva was never able to trace back what happened entirely either. But basically, somehow another A.I was able to break into our systems and in combination with an initial ground force was able to take control of our mainframe and go about the business of turning dead bodies into those monsters. Ultimately, we decided it was Oculus and their own A.I. Nerva believes such a radical attack was attempted because she had not yet been brought on-line to guard against another A.I so we were vulnerable to a complete systems breakdown. Nerva says it's not been tried again, and in fact she hasn't detected another A. I’s presence since then, other than a few traces here and there.” Explained Luke.
“I wonder why, you'd think Nerva would be constantly bumping into another A.I who was also using the web for information gathering and surveillance.” Simon Asked.
“Apparently not, and there's no guarantee that another A.I would have the same information gathering philosophy as Nerva, it's entirely possible it's isolated itself in a closed system to conceal its presence, who knows.” Said Luke.
“So, nothing like that can happen again right?” Asked Simon.
“Not likely, not only is Nerva basically THE mainframe now, she has her own automated defenses that are physically isolated from external access, and in addition to that, the system that runs Firewall can be easily physically separated from outside access by anyone there. We haven't had an incursion of any kind since then.” Said Luke, laying back down.
“It's unsettling to know that kind of technology exists somewhere, unmonitored. Being used by who knows what for who knows what.” Signed Simon.
“That's what I've dedicated my life to finding out Simon, keeping technology like that from being misused. Just imagine what organic-inorganic interfacing could do to the prosthetic industry. Replace limbs, restored mobility to the paralyzed, replacement organs. And in time, the world might be ready, and even welcome cosmetic enhancements. But right now, whoever has access to it, is a madman. No one has the right to abuse technology like that, not even its own inventor. Simon let's try and get some sleep, we might not get much of it for a while going forward.” And with that, Luke rolled over and began dowsing off almost immediately.
Simon laid there for several minutes after clicking off the lights, staring up into the dark, the ceiling slowly coming into vision as his eyes adapted to the gloom, the occasional stray headlight beam filtering through the ratty motel curtains. It could be so easy to become the bad guy with the kind of power Firewall wields, he hoped he’d never have to see that in himself.
16. Pacing
Waking up the next morning made Simon feel like he was raising himself from the dead. The window of the room faced East out across the empty field adjacent to the motel so as soon the sun began to creep over the horizon, baleful rays of orange light sliced into the room, making any hope of sleeping in an impossible task. Luke had told his story well into the night and right now Simon only wished he could sleep more. His body still ached and burned from injury, and the pain was creeping back in as the painkillers wore off from the night before. As he struggled to rise and sit along the edge of his bed, he became aware of the sounds of running water coming from the bathroom alcove at the rear of the room.
“Luke, you back there?” A stupid question really, Simon was looking straight at Luke’s empty bed and who else could it have been.
Leaning his head back into the main room to meet eyes with Simon, Luke gargled the last of his mouth wash and then righted himself and spit it out in the sink. “Only other person here besides you.” We gotta get moving, Nerva said they had stopped for a while last night North of town but were now moving again.”
Simon grabbed his pants off the floor with his feet and pulled them closer so he could get up and get dressed. The sharp pain in his ribs and arms had been replaced by a deep throbbing soreness, so sitting perfectly still while medicated should make it bearable, once they were back in the car and on the road. He wondered to himself what exactly he’d be able to do if something happened, but Simon decided it was better to not dwell on the infinitely possible negatives and instead consider himself lucky to be alive and in a somewhat manageable state.
Getting dressed took longer than he wished it had, Luke had time to finish up getting ready himself, moving the bags back out into the car and square the room with the front desk before Simon was able to get to his feet and make his way to the outside door. Luke was parked idling in front of the room when Simon emerged into the morning light.
Lurching like someone who’d recently been run over, Simon made his way out the door, pausing to make sure everything he carried on his person; his pistol, fake ID, and the pocket knife he’d found in his luggage were all with him. He drew the door closed behind him and stood considering the vast gap between the front of the car and the door handle he was now clutching for support.
“Two good, normal human steps and you can lean against the hood again like a gimp Simon.” He told himself. “Just two, then you can work your way along the side of the car no problem.”
Too proud to ask for help with two steps, Simon looked at Luke sitting in the driver’s seat and nodded.
Luke, his sarcastic demeanor having returned with the morning sun, leaning out the window and said, “If you fall I’m leaving you here to starve to death on the sidewalk, so good luck with that gap.”
“I’ve got my pistol on me, I’ll shoot your tires out and save the rest for when the coyotes come in the night.” Smirked Simon.
“One gunfight a week is all we’re budgeted for Simon; those bullets will come out of your salary.” Said Luke.
With a quick gasp and one firm step followed by a controlled fall disguised as a second step, Simon managed to cross the distance and latch onto the hood with his dignity intact. He followed his plan and worked his way along the side of the car as casually as possible and crawled his way into the passenger seat without much further trouble.
“We’re supposed to be getting a salary? I need to talk to HR then because I haven’t received a paycheck yet.” Mused Simon as they pulled out of the parking space and joined the rest of the morning traffic on the road.
Luke ignored the sarcasm and said, “I want you to do as much as you are physically capable of so you can get a strong grip on what you can do. We might have some tough times ahead and I don’t want you over exerting yourself trying to do a combat roll across a tile floor somewhere and dislocating those ribs or arm. Getting you through this mission is more important than catching these guys, and we are in no rush to have a showdown with them. Ideally, we can track them to their source then just lay low nearby and wait for you to get back into fighting, or at least functioning shape.”
Simon leaned back and closed his eyes, the motion of the vehicle was playing with his head and he could feel the vibration from the road registering in the injured parts of his body. Not excruciating, but certainly not comfortable. He committed himself to not taking more painkillers until at least noon, mostly out of pride but also a little out of concer
n for developing a dependency since he’d likely be taking them for weeks and weeks going forward. He tilted his head and looked out the window, the all too familiar passing businesses and signs of the normal world filled Simon with something of a mix of nostalgia and pity. At once he missed the basic comforts of living a life with a mundane routine, predictable settings and small problems. But he also knew he could never return to a common life like that, and didn’t want too anyway for that matter. The early morning sights of fast food places serving breakfast and commuters headed out to their various jobs left him feeling like all this mundane living was all part of another world, one where he was now only a visitor. Maybe the world would be better if all this technology came out in the open, but the possibility for utter turmoil was far too great and he knew it. It went beyond simply de-stabilizing the economy with radical new ways of doing things. Some of the technology he’d learned about had the potential to completely break down society. The chaos that would follow could cost thousands of livings or more. And suddenly, finally, Simon decided right then that was what he was focused on. Keeping innocent people like that coffee shop girl from getting caught in the crossfire over something her or her family will ever come to understand. Human lives are not the play things of the powerful, no matter how powerful they are, man or machine.
Simon sat in the fog of his mind with his eyes closed, feeling Luke turn this way and that, then finally sensing the acceleration of highway travel only at the edge of his awareness. Simon became aware of a small tingling sound in his ear, and after a few moments he realized it was a kind of incoming call coming through his ear-piece. Unsure exactly how to answer it, he simply said, “Hello?”
Through the ear-piece, Nerva came through with crystal clarity, “Simon, how are you feeling? I’ve got some recovery time projections if you’d like to hear them.”
Simon responded, “Yeah sure, give it to me straight doc.”
“Well, you are very, and I mean VERY fortunate to not have any internal complications. Based on your vitals and Luke’s observational reports, you don’t seem to have any internal bleeding or other injuries that can’t heal on their own given time and rest. The bad news of course being you aren’t going to have access to proper rest while you are still in pursuit of the operatives you encountered. Given all together, you can’t truly begin healing and rehab until you are stopped, after that, another four or five weeks of rehab until you are back into fit form.”
Simon, “five weeks? Do we really have that kind of time?”
Luke, who was also connected to the communication along with Nerva spoke up.
“I know it seems like we are reacting fast and racing hard to catch these guys, but what we really want is the location of their base of operations, once we find that out, we’ll be in absolutely no rush. Situation permitting, we might even return to the Firewall compound so you can recover in style under Nerva and David’s expert care.”
Nerva responded, nearly buzzing, “Luke I can count the number of blood vessels in your body based on the way your heart beat sounds, don’t try to slip a sarcastic jab in sideways like that, it’s rude.”
Luke, “Yes Dear.”
Nerva, “See, direct sarcasm, that’s better.”
Simon spoke up, “Nerva can you really do that just through the ear-piece?”
Nerva, “That’s only part of the puzzle, between the ear-piece, the microscopic chip in your left thumb we gave you, and the one in your right big toe, I can build a three dimensional image of the rhythm of your heartbeat, as well as listen to the echo in your circulatory system which lets me monitor for internal bleeding and determine where it is if it’s happening, along with allowing me to monitor for a host of other body conditions.”
Luke chimed in. “That’s why we decided not to abandon the mission and get you more through medical care, Nerva decided you’d be alright as you were so we could keep going.”
Simon still bristled at the lack privacy he had now with Nerva constantly looking over his shoulder, it wasn’t exactly like his habits were getting sold somewhere for targeted marketing, but it was an uncomfortable idea to realize that he could never truly be alone again.
“It’s good I guess. It’s like we all have a real-life guardian angel on a timeshare.” Exclaimed Simon.
Nerva clicked a mechanical sound in his ear, a sound Simon had come to associate with exacerbation from her. “Well, with glowing praise like that it’s no wonder I’m such a diligent protector.” And with that the communication link ended.
Simon looked over at Luke and gestured to ask if she was stilling listening in on them, to which Luke said no.
Simon could help but let out a slight sigh. “She sure can be surly, almost to the point of non-professional. Why is she like that?”
Luke half laughed half shrugged, “She takes her humanity very seriously, and when one of us implies she’s less that a full consciousness she gets offended. Can’t say that I blame her for it either. I have a hard time interacting with her sometimes because I don’t have a face to associate with her voice, even just a robot face, but she’s never indicated to me or anyone what exactly she thinks of as her own self either, so she’s got identity crisis crossed with a touch of megalomania thing going on that can make her come off as prickly. I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s no different than any other human with grab bag of trauma and life experience all mixed together into a personality, she’s just the same as us in that regard.”
Simon turned to look out his window for a moment before continuing, “What about that box thing that contains her core processing? The quantum box? You could just consider that the -her- of the system, right?”
Luke glanced over at Simon and shrugged. “She says that’s like treating your frontal lobe as your whole being, instead of your entire body and mind. The box is just the small piece where the indeterminate nature of what makes her truly sentient comes from. The supporting complex and the surveillance she basically uses as her eyes and ears now comprise just as much of her body as that.” Said Luke.
Simon looked back at Luke. “You know it’s no wonder the technology that made her has been so closely controlled by Firewall, there’s just no telling what you’d get each time you turned it loose out of that box.”
Luke nodded. “True enough, but it’s only her and one other one somewhere that hasn’t even surfaced in years, and as far as we can tell that’s it.”
Simon and Luke fell into silence after that, letting the hours of long monotonous road wash over them, Simon took painkillers when he had too, and they stopped to eat and refuel twice before the sun began to set again. After dozing for hours Simon looked through bleary eyes to see that they’d crossed the Montana state line well into the evening. Simon pulled them over into a motel that was surprisingly nice for being in the middle of nowhere, they talked over more cheap pizza mostly about themselves and what it was like for them before Firewall, and that night Simon would dream dark chaotic dreams, the dreams of a restless mind.”
17. Location
Two weeks went by with Simon and Luke following their target back and forth across the country. They would drive all day winding through small country roads seemingly at random, only to stop somewhere outside of a small town in the middle of nowhere for the night and then begin moving again at daybreak. Tracking them by GPS was easy enough, so Luke and Simon kept their distance and stayed well outta sight to completely avoid raising their suspicion. Luke decided not to stop and investigate any of their overnight campsites as they might very well be booby trapped or an ambush waiting for anyone following them. No, he knew the right play was to patiently wait them out while they did their seemingly long rehearsed avoidance routine, and just wait for them to return to their base of operations. But the tedium was really starting to get to both of them, and it was clear that this level of subterfuge was intended to shake them off their trail. They still had the money bags too, because they hadn’t stopped anywhere that the money could have been deposi
ted at. It occurred to Luke that they were being lead into a trap, and that wasn’t even about the money to begin with, but so far, he didn’t have any reason to think otherwise. Suspicion could be an insidious thing, and the long monotonous hours on the road were beginning to wear down Luke and Simon’s nerve, making them second guess if they were on doing the right thing by holding back.
Simon shifted his feet through the old food wrappers and empty bottles in the floorboard, the passing weeks went a long way to take the teeth out of the pain in his side, but the stiffness would be around for months yet, and endless hours sitting in the car make it difficult to stretch out when he needed too.
“Luke, can we pull over soon, I’m getting restless and my back is killing me.”
Luke began pulling over before speaking, “I was just thinking that too, we certainly aren’t in any damn hurry that’s for sure. We got anymore of that jerky in the back?”
Simon reached around behind his sit and felt around in the spot he’d been leaving the jerky, but the package he retrieved was empty save for a few crumbs. “Looks like we are out of it. Tough luck.”
Luke groaned as he parked the car, “This waiting around is getting too me, I’m sick of driving all day just to sleep in some ratty motel in some rural backwater town in the middle of nothing at night. I bet I’ve put on ten pounds from all the junk food and sitting still all day.”
Simon popped his door and swung around to stretch out his legs, “Same here, I feel like we’re on a stakeout with none of the conveniences of one.”
Luke didn’t respond, and after a few seconds Simon decided there was really no response worth hearing and pushed himself out of the car and went to take a short walk. They were somewhere in Nebraska now, vast open plains with nothing to see and nowhere to go. It occurred to him that they were intentionally being tortured with boredom into making a mistake. This tactic was obviously designed to take advantage of the fact that lamped mindless operatives aren’t going to get bored and will only follow instructions to completion. And any pursuers will either lose track of them or give up long before they finish their full evasive sequence.
